Story+2003-10-01+New+York+City,+NY

“Good evening, everybody (crowd cheers) welcome to Shea Stadium (crowd cheers)…alright…”
 * 01.10.03 Flushing, NY, intro to “Empty Sky”**

“Come on, Stevie, let’s warm it up…celebrate yourself (?)(chuckles) …you must be from Italy…”
 * 01.10.03 Flushing, NY, intro to “Waitin’ on a Sunny Day”**

“Alright, bring it down, band…wait now…I got an interesting correspondence backstage before the show, never really gotten one of these before…thought I’d read it to you, it goes, uh, “Dear Mr. Springsteen, this is just a short letter to let you know I’ll be attending your show on Wednesday, October 1st, with three of my students, third-grader Nicholas (?), fourth-graders Emily (?) and Dominique Williams…we’ll be sitting in (?) section MR 11, row M, seats 11 to 14…PS 48…PS 48 is located in the Hunt’s Point section of the South Bronx known by many – most of us actually – as the best school in the universe…where I am totally thrilled to have these great kids as my guests…however, given their tender age, I don’t know if such a great idea to be making comments regarding sexualization, natural Viagra, booty-quaking and eating Philly cheese-steaks while watching adults films (laughs from the crowd) that I have heard at your previous shows…on the other hand, while I am the principal, I understand you are the Boss (laughs from the crowd) thanks, thanks for time and consideration, drop by PS 48 any time, sincerely, John C. Hughes, Principal” (crowd cheers) now I gotta figure…this sounds a little tongue-in-cheek to me, I gotta figure either somebody has hijacked the Principal, Principal Hughes’ stationary or maybe while not running PS 48 in the South Bronx, Principal Hughes resides in a galaxy far, far away (chuckles) and has never heard of Britney Spears (chuckles)(laughs from the crowd) but, anyway, I guess I, I can’t really, uh, I can’t really compromise my artistic, artistic integrity of course but, uh, I will leave out sexualization and natural Viagra but booty-quaking and eating Philly cheese-steaks while watching adult films has gotta stay so (laughs from the crowd) but, anyway, Principal Hughes if you’re out there, all these things are gonna happen within the next eight minutes (crowd cheers) and all I wanna know, Sir…(the “Are you ready?”-routine with the crowd)…alright…the booties are about to quake (chuckles)… heading for the cheese steak (chuckles)… (…)(more of the “Are you ready?”-routine with the crowd)…are you ready for a house party? (crowd cheers)…are you ready for a rock’n’roll baptism? (crowd cheers) a rock’n’roll bar mitzvah? (crowd cheers) a rock’n’roll – where are we? Shea Stadium – you need a rock’n’roll exorcism, baby (crowd cheers) ooh, we’ve got to chase the evil spirits out of here! (laughs from the crowd) I wanna introduce on our stage, on the piano, Professor Roy Bittan (crowd cheers) on the violin and vocals, Sister Soozie Tyrell (crowd cheers) on the guitar, the coolest little deejay, adult film-watching, Philly cheese-steak-eating Brother Steve Van Zandt (crowd cheers) on the bass guitar, Mr. Garry W. Tallent (crowd cheers) on the drums, the man that brings the power hour after hour, night after night, Minister of the Big Beat, Secretary of Syncopation and star of Late Night (crowd:”Television”) Mighty Max Weinberg (crowd cheers) on the guitar, one of the greatest guitarists in rock’n’roll, Brother Nils Lofgren (crowd cheers) on the organ, Minister of Mystery, keeper of the secrets on E Street, Phantom Dan Federici (crowd cheers) on the guitar and vocals, First Lady of Love, natural Viagra, my sweetie baby honey child, Miss Patti Scialfa (crowd cheers) kiss on you, baby…last but not least…ladies and gentlemen…it is time…it is time…I wanna introduce the Minister of Soul, Secretary of the Brotherhood, it is time to impeach the President and put in somebody that knows what they’re doing…Big Man, Clarence Clemons (crowd cheers)(?)…now I want you to put your hands together for the heart-stopping, house-rocking, brain-shocking, pants-dropping, history-making, booty-quaking, Viagra-taking, love-making, sexifying, death-defying, electrifying, exorcising, legendary E Street Band! (crowd cheers)…did I mention history-making, pants-dropping? (crowd cheers)…alright…”
 * 01.10.03 Flushing, NY, intro to “Mary’s Place”**

“Thank you (crowd cheers) thank you…as you know, this is our, our stand here in Shea Stadium’s our last stand for the year (crowd cheers) I wanna thank all for coming out…ooh…want to, uh…also thank everybody, I know a bunch of you have been to more than one show and we just appreciate your support of the band and our music (crowd cheers) oh…wanna do this tonight for some friends of ours in the house from the Coalition for the Homeless…tonight in New York City 39,000 people will sleep in shelters…Coalition for the Homeless offers mobile soup kitchen, crisis intervention services, job training and other programs aimed at ending homelessness in New York, if you see them on the way out, please stop and check out Coalition for the Homeless, assist them in any way you can… this is for them…”
 * 01.10.03 Flushing, NY, intro to “My City of Ruins”**

“Thank you, I wanna thank everybody once again for coming out (crowd cheers) appreciate it…I’ll make my little public service announcement…we get people of all different kinds of political beliefs come to our show and we like that, we welcome everybody …there’s been a lot of questions raised recently about the forthrightness of the government, I just wanna say that playing with the truth during wartime has been part of both Democratic and Republican administrations in the past – it’s always wrong, never more so when the lives of our sons and our daughters are on the line…the question of the way we entered the war in Iraq isn’t really a Liberal or a Conservative question, it is an American one, I think it goes to the heart of protecting the democracy that we ask our sons and our daughters to go out and to give their lives for (crowd cheers) demanding accountability from our leaders is our sacred trust, it’s our job as citizens, may the truth will out…”
 * 01.10.03 Flushing, NY, intro to “Born in the U.S.A”**

“Woo, yeah, baby!...a little end of the summer, end of the tour surprise…are we ready? (crowd cheers) maestro…//the night was chilled, the moon was yellow…and the leaves came tumbling down…//”
 * 01.10.03 Flushing, NY, intro to “Rosalita”**

//Compiled by Johanna Pirttijärvi//